“Sisters” Revisited

This month I am on the move more than usual and did not want to leave A Good Enough Life empty of new material while I flit around on family visits. June is the birthday month of both of my sisters, my only siblings, so I thought I might compromise by bringing back an old post I wrote on Sisters in 2012 with a few new pictures.

If, as Robert Frost wrote, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in,” then sisters are the “home” that takes you in. They are the ones who know ALL about you. They are the ones who NEVER viewed you through the rose-colored glasses of friends or the guilty, anxious eyes of parents. Sisters are the ones who covered for you, made up for your deficiencies, shared the miseries and joys of your childhood, told you hard truths that no one else dared, defended you and kept your secrets and yet ratted you out when necessary. Sisters may roll their eyes behind your back but woe to anyone else who dares to demean you, to bring you down.

When I think of “sisters,” my mind rambles over three sets of relationships: my mother’s with her sisters, me with mine, and my daughters with each other. The outstanding attribute that comes to mind for all is that, whatever similarities exist(ed) in appearance, background, experience, lifestyle, habits, hobbies or humor, each of these women was/is very different from her sisters.

My mother was the oldest daughter in a farming family of four girls and three boys. With only one brother older than herself, I can guess that by the time she married at 21, she was pretty sick of rocking the cradle and looking after the others. One sister eloped to live a hardscrabble life, one married and was eventually abandoned by her charming but chronically unfaithful husband, one married in her 30′s (late in life for the times), and then there was my mother who carved out a life with one man for 70 years.

In the old posed formal photograph you see here, my mother is on the far right holding the straw hat when, as she confessed to my sister, she very much wanted the doll. Standing is the oldest brother.

Those women could populate a kitchen and make it hum with their homely tasks, sharp wit, love of food and recipes and quick laughter. Although individually unique in how they lived their lives, they moved around each other with the grace of a familiar dance. Later in pairs they might bemoan the fate of one sister and shake their heads over another, but soon they would be planning what they could do to help. Their sisterhood had nothing to do with what they had in common but a tolerance of their differences. They did not know everything about each other as adults, but what they shared growing up provided a solid foundation from which they were able to pick up the pieces for one another when necessary – and with respect.

In her very old age, as we played many games of rummy together, my mother told me that her summer bringing in the hay with one of her sisters was the happiest of her life because they laughed so much. I understood completely.

I have two sisters, 12 and eight years older. Because my mother had sole charge of their small farm during the week while my father was toiling at a factory job to earn a stable income, my sisters (who had no idea my mother was even pregnant until they woke to an aunt babysitting them while she went to the hospital!) were charged early with a lot of my care. It is the two of them who tell me stories of my earliest life. I was 10 when my oldest sister married and 15 when the other hit the altar. I knew none of their secrets (except what I could overhear when I lurked around the edges of their more exciting lives) and lived away from them all of my adult life.

And yet here we are, each of us in the home stretch of our lives, still apart, and yet linked by years of holiday meals, letters, phone calls, visits, thoughtful gifts, memories of each other’s good and difficult times, romances, shopping trips, shared family worries, our children and, ultimately, the death of our parents a month apart. We have helped and disappointed each other, criticized and encouraged, envied and praised, understood and been at our wits’ end. To use a popular phraseology, my sisters were not always there for me nor I for them – but only because we did not always ask. However, when I had to go there (whatever “there” was at the time), they did not have to accept me and take me in, but they did. I hope I have done half as well.

My mother’s family is rife with girls – and only girls. She had three, the eloping sister had three, and the abandoned sister had two. I have three girls and my daughters have produced only girls. I know it’s true, of course, but I have trouble grasping that the male partner determines the sex of the child! Then I remind myself that my oldest sister has one son and my middle sister has two sons in addition to her three daughters.

Every mother I know longs for her children to be friends with one another. I feel this is no more likely among daughters than it is among sons or a mix. In fact, I see so much against the possibility that I think it is amazing when it happens. Some of us would not choose to hang out with our sister(s) if life had not made us family. But life did and so we do and sometimes we even have fun. But what if we look at life with entirely different eyes from those of our sister(s)? What if their attitudes or choices or mannerisms or personality drive us up the wall or hurt us regularly?

Sisters can look like clones, have many of the same gifts, laugh at stuff only they find funny, click on many subjects, be incredibly generous with one another, share solid values and personal information – and yet after a couple of days together, often they’re pretty much done, and the eye rolling irritation begins. The only area of consistent agreement seems to be parents. (I knew we were good for something!) Does this mean they are not friends? I’m not sure, but I guess the answer would involve agreeing on a definition of friendship. What I think is that sisters who are friends are sisters with benefits.

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On June 1st,my sisters (3) & I are all exactly one year apart in age. The only day of the year. I remember only when the last was born,as she was the reason for 2 birthday parties when I was 4,and I was told that she was my birthday present!
We are the last of my grandmother’s 37 grandchildren,and still have cousins who tell us they remember us in diapers. We are all in our 50s now,so please,folks,give it up!
Memoories of being and doing together are prominent. Whether it was learning to cook & bake with Mom( 4 kids,4 weekends in a month – we each had our time with her),or plotting a game where all of us could participate,we were quite the crew.
Luckily,I am the mother of 2 daughters. I probably was never meant for sons. Having such a strong foundation is probably why my girl friends are so important to me.